La villa Santo Sospir (1975) - full transcript

This film is not for judges.

It addresses friends known and
unknown that our work brings us,

and who are the only reason
for us to be poets,

a true attack on modesty,

since being a poet means
publicly confiding one's secrets,

better to speak out loud
in our sleep.

That is why the film will search
those who read the figures,

who go to the trouble
of reading the figures,

a task the spirit despises

but the heart performs
with remarkable facility.

I have too often advised young
filmmakers to use 16 mm



without taking the risk myself.

Moreover, I find that amateurs

are often tempted by the
technique of professionals.

Being a professionaI,
I wanted to make an amateur film

without burdening myself
with any rules.

One day, one shall regret
having been too precise

and artists will try
to provoke intentionally

the accidents that
chance provides.

That will be the
difficult moment.

The Kodachrome counter-type has
its own way to transform colors

and in the most
unaccepted manner.

One must accept that
it somehow creates something

like the interpretation
of a painter.

One must also accept
the surprises.



We face a machine
that invents.

What I show is not
what I want

but that which the machine
and chemicaI baths want.

It's a different world

in which one must forget
the world one inhabits.

Villa Santo Sospir belongs
to Madame Alec Weissweiller.

It dominates Cape Santo Sospir,

the last point on the map

before arriving at Cape Ferrat.

The villa is situated
on the road to the lighthouse,

and its rocks descend
to the sea.

It looks out on Antibes,
Cannes, Nice,

and to the right, Villefranche
where I have lived a long time.

Here is the new lighthouse.
Its scaffolding is still up,

and it resembles Piranese
architecture in style.

When I stayed at Santo Sospir
in the summer of 1950

I hastily decorated a wall.

Matisse told me that if
you decorate one wall,

you should do the others
as well. He was right.

Picasso opened and closed
all the doors.

All that was left to do
was to paint the doors.

That is what I tried to do.

But the doors lead into rooms.

The rooms have walls.

And if the doors are painted
the walls have an empty look.

I spent the entire summer
of 1950 working on ladders.

An old Italian worker
prepared my pigments,

immersed in fresh milk.

A young woman lives
at Santo Sospir.

I didn't need
to dress the walls.

I had to draw
on their surface.

That's why I made
line frescoes,

with a few colors
that echo tattoo art.

Santo Sospir is
a tattooed villa.

The first tattoo of
the large hall

is over the fireplace which
itself is tattooed with leaves.

That represents
the myth of the sun.

To the right and to the left
you see the sun priests,

the fishermen of Villefranche.

The next tattoo shows
the evening sun.

A woman sleeping on the sand.

Her head rests on the corner
of a vestibule door.

In the shade, behind me,
you will notice

one of the vestibule graffiti,
"Night in its Chariot"

as in Amphitryon, where
Night speaks with Mercury.

Back to the main hall. I didn't
mention the myth of the moon:

a sleeping fisherman
and a unicorn.

The hall echoes
of a Greek grave,

because of the tattooless bay
which surrounds the dining hall,

containing a tapestry
which I will show you later.

We are in "Diana's Room".

This room shows the
myth of Akteon.

Surprised by Diana
and her nymphs,

Akteon turned
into a stag.

Diana was surprised...
Here is a bird.

Here is another bird.

Here is a third bird.

If one looks from a greater
distance, the 3 birds disappear

in favor of the whole
and form one of these voids

around which the significant
lines form themselves,

because the insignificant lines
must become significant.

They affect
the patch-like style.

The tatooists of the doors are inspired
by catalogues and postcards.

I respected this tradition but
was inspired

by Renoir's Bathers.

Over the bed, a shepherd attends
the mythicaI scene

indifferently.

The sun annoys us. It eats
up the lines and the colors.

I will try to show them
to you a bit better.

A tiny antechamber leads to
the room we just visited.

A reaI maze of nooks
and crannies

forces us to proceed
like acrobats.

To the right of the
sleeping reader...

Lots of sleeping
on these walls...

The stairs lead to
the rooms downstairs.

The vault which shows
the genius of sleep

is the only painted fresco
in the villa.

My work as a painter
was not easy.

I forgot there were steps.
I stepped back,

and more than once
I was knocked over.

Dioscure on the right.
I didn't manage the left one,

having no retreat. That will
give us one sleeper less...

The deformation of the arm
comes from having to film

Iying down, our back
on the steps.

Another drawing based
on a modeI by Renoir.

Santo Sospir was
apparently a hunter.

Here is the Centaur of ancient Antipolis

on which the saint is mounted.
Armed with his bow,

he marks his prey
and his route.

The narrowness of the corridor
keeps us from filming all of it.

One can only guess it
from the fragments

across the doors.

Here is the saint on horseback
on the centaur,

with his hair Pisanello style,
falcon on his wrist.

We open a door
that you already know.

Here is the billy-goat room,
or room of sages.

There you see billy-goats,
or sages over the beds.

Facing the beds, the goat-foot,
unicorns and waves.

I forgot to tell you that the
goat-foot is holding

the flat-bread, traditionaI sacrament
of Grasse, Biot and Antibes.

Since the transformation
of the Grimaldi museum,

Merchants from Antibes call it
"Picasso's Manna".

Here is one flat-bread
that hasn't been cut yet.

The tattoo of the next room

tells the myth of Narcissus.

The room is called
the "Echo Chamber".

Mosquito-nets, alas,
are indispensable.

In this room one sees Narcissus
and at times the nymph Echo

who repeats her name
tattooed in red.

It's the shade
of those Nice beds.

Another room here, called
"Initiation of the Bacchants".

Two young women are
initiated by bacchants.

We go back all the way
to the garden.

Facing us, Dionysus sleeps
after having drunk.

It so often happens that
tattoo art leads to painting.

In 1951,
the villa was tattooed.

I started to paint.
I hid my paintings.

My closets are full
of pictures.

But the camera is the most
indiscreet eye of all.

This painting represents the
myth of Ulysses and the sirens.

Bound to the mast, Ulysses
plugged his ears with wax.

The sirens danced and sang,
not knowing they were defeated.

One of them arrives from
faraway at great speed.

A bound sailor tightens
his hat over his ears.

Again, a hidden painting.

This is the myth
of Phaedra and Oenone.

Phaedra suffers.
I change perspective.

I go over her face, expressing
indifference, come what may.

It's unwise to smoke
while filming.

When one no longer knows
where to place the canvases,

they are hung on trees.

Orpheus attacked
by the Bacchants.

Head of the dead Orpheus.

Here is the temptation of
Christ on the mountain.

The Apple.

Satan is charming, of course.
He tries to persuade.

Christ listens only with one
ear. The other is elsewhere.

Here are painted bricks.

And a small canvas,
"Jacob fighting the AngeI."

Another Orpheus: "Orpheus
among the Leaves".

Here is a wheat field
on a garden bed.

Here is golden Orpheus
on the beach.

Nothing is more comfortable
than these American pants

to carry cigarettes.

For lack of room,
I often paint

in a studio under
construction,

between the villa
and the lighthouse.

I'm very proud when the workers
show interest in my work

and forget about their own.

Same window, the other
way round.

Time flies...

The studio is finished. I visit
it with Francine Weisweiller.

If I were prone to jealousy,

I'd envy Edouard Dermit
for his paintings.

Example of the storm
of color in counter-type:

This painting which seems pale
and in one single green tone

actually consists of very
vivid and numerous greens.

It's the second time with
Jean Marais

that one of my actors surprises
me by starting to paint.

It's odd to see
how very young painters

already oppose the abstract
schooI as they develop.

At my age one no longer has
the time to go on vacation.

Vacation is work.

When I write a play,
I write a play.

When I paint, I paint.

When I draw, I draw.

I write, paint, draw.

But work never keeps me
from moving from port to port,

between Villefranche, and its
famous hoteI Welcome...

Between Villefranche and
the beautifuI Porto Venere,

with its phantom houses,
phantom rocks,

phantom church,
its phantom of Lord Byron.

Work does not keep me from
an occasionaI horse ride.

Work does not keep me from
even riding a lion.

For the rest, my horse and
my lion get along splendidly.

Work does not keep me from
the occasionaI game of "boules".

This drink is a welcome substitute
for cigarettes

in the editing rooms where
we are forbidden to smoke.

I wanted to try and make
flowers on the cape.

I started by painting them.

I quickly renounced
this method.

I shall now show you a
masterpiece of French handicraft

I don't mean myself,
nor my work -

but the work of weavers at
the Bourret Studio in Aubusson.

I have named them "harpists";

because they play harps
with string and pattern.

Matisse warned me against
the absence of patterns,

a result of the flat
tones of modern tapestry.

Here, in one meter,
I cannot differentiate

between the tapestries of
Aubusson and the originaI.

The 3 by 3.5 meter tapestry

represents Judith after the
death of Holopherne.

I've intentionally chosen
a Roman Prize' subject.

Judith has stuck,
she's no longer a woman,

but a walking sarcophagus,
possessor of her own history.

She is carrying the head
of her victim.

She comes across in the moonlight,

the sleeping guards,
who were drugged by her maid.

The maid resembles
some kind of insect,

still lit by the room
where the beheading took place.

One of the bizarre qualities
of counter-type Kodachrome

is that instead of a tapestry
lit from the front,

one seems to be looking at
stained glass lit from behind.

Here is Madame Weisweiller
painting.

Naturally, the portrait was painted
by Edouard Dermit.

Allow me to present the lady
of the manor, in person.

She would like to thank you
for your patience.

Here is the villa's mascot.
We call him "the Master".

May he bring you luck,
as he does for us.

I'd like to take this opportunity
to thank Dr. Ricoux,

vice president of the cinema
club of Nice of which I am

president of honor, who has
helped us in our task.

Picasso, Matisse, Chagall
and myself,

on this coast where
Renoir used to live.

We have tried to defeat the
destructive spirit of our time.

We have ornamented the surfaces

which men dream
to demolish.

Perhaps the love of our work

will protect it from bombs.